Marriage More Important Than High School In Fighting Poverty

Most of us have heard someone tell us to make sure we get a good education so we don’t end up living in poverty. Years ago, it was high school. You had to have a high school diploma in order to get a decent job. Then it was all about getting a college degree in order to obtain a good paying job. The problem now is that there is a surplus of college educated people and many of them can’t find those good paying jobs they heard about.

However, a recent study conducted by The Heritage Foundation revealed that there is one thing that is more important in preventing poverty than an education. Their study revealed that marriage may play a more important role in preventing poverty than even a high school education.

Robert Rector, Senior Research Fellow and Spokesman for The Heritage Foundation explained the results of the study to OneNewsNow saying:

"If you look nationwide, in a given year about 37 percent of the single-parent families with children are poor. By contrast, of the married two-parent families, only 7 percent of them are poor. And you know what? That reduction occurs even if you make a comparison between parents at the same education level."

"It's actually a stronger factor than graduating from high school. Now, I'm not suggesting that people should drop out of high school -- [finishing high school is] clearly a very positive thing. But the fact of the matter is that marriage is actually more powerful in terms of its social and economic outcomes, and no one talks about it. It's a big secret."

Two Strong Anti-Poverty Weapons: The higher poverty rate among single-mother families is due to two factors: (1) lower income because of the absence of the father, and (2) the lower average education levels among single mothers. While policymakers recognize that education reduces poverty, most are unaware that marriage is an equally strong anti-poverty weapon. In the U.S., married couples with children are 76% less likely to be poor than non-married families with the same level of education. In fact, a married family headed by a high school dropout in the U.S. is actually less likely to be poor than a non-married family headed by an individual with a few years of college.

More Births Outside Marriage Are to Less-Educated Women: Nationwide, roughly two-thirds of births among women who are high school dropouts are outside of marriage. In contrast, only 8.1% of births to college-educated women are to single women. Ironically, those women who will have the hardest time going it alone as a single parent are the most likely to have a child outside of marriage.

Two-Caste Society: Because of these trends, the U.S. is splitting into a two-caste society. In the top half of the population, children are raised by married couples with a college education. In the bottom economic third of the population, children are raised by single mothers with a high school degree or less.

Not the Same as Teen Pregnancy: While policymakers generally focus on teen pregnancy, in reality, only 7.7% births to single women in the U.S. occur to girls under age 18. Most non-marital births occur to young adult women in their early 20s. Lack of access to birth control is not a significant cause of non-marital births. Rather, the breakdown of marriage in low-income and working-class communities drives the vast majority of unwed childbearing in the U.S.

Ignoring the Positive Impact of Marriage on Children: At present, the U.S. does little or nothing to discourage unwed births and nothing to encourage and strengthen healthy marriages. In fact, most welfare programs actively penalize low-income couples who do marry. Ironically, research shows that most unwed parents look favorably on the institution of marriage.

New Policies Should Build on These Attitudes: Government should provide factual information to at-risk youth about the value of marriage. It should also connect low-income couples with community resources that will help them relearn the skills needed to develop and sustain healthy marriages before bringing children into the world. Finally, the state welfare system should be reformed to encourage rather than discourage marriage.

When you carefully examine the results of their studies, it should become apparent that almost everything the President Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing is only adding to the problem of poverty. They aren’t defending marriage. They encourage promiscuous sex before and outside of marriage. They are focusing so much of their attention, energy and money into programs that apparently only contribute to the growing problem of poverty.

The questions you now have to ask is are they doing it out of ignorance or is it a premeditated act. Are the Democrats purposely destroying the traditional family unit knowing that it will often result in a lower economic class and more dependency on government aid? The more people are living in poverty and on government aid, the easier it is to add more socialistic programs until finally you have an official socialistic government. And the Dems seem to be doing this all too well.